Mount of Olives

Coordinates: 31°46′42″N 35°14′38″E / 31.77833°N 35.24389°E / 31.77833; 35.24389
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Mount of Olives
Mount Olivet
Judean Mountains
Climbing
Easiest routeRoad
Arabic: جبل الزيتون, romanized: Jabal az-Zaytūn; both lit. 'Mount of Olives'; in Arabic also الطور, Aṭ-Ṭūr, 'the Mountain') is a mountain ridge in East Jerusalem, east of and adjacent to Jerusalem's Old City.[1] It is named for the olive groves that once covered its slopes. The southern part of the mount was the Silwan necropolis, attributed to the elite of the ancient Kingdom of Judah.[2] The western slopes of the mount, those facing Jerusalem, have been used as a Jewish cemetery for over 3,000 years and holds approximately 150,000 graves, making it central in the tradition of Jewish cemeteries.[3] Atop the hill lies the Palestinian neighbourhood of At-Tur, a former village that is now part of East Jerusalem
.

Several key events in the life of

Mary, the mount has been a site of Christian worship since ancient times and is today a major site of pilgrimage for Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, and Protestants
.

Geography and geology

Olive tree on the Mount of Olives said to be 800–2,000 years old[4]

The Mount of Olives is one of three peaks of a mountain

Judean Desert
.

The ridge is formed of oceanic sedimentary rock from the Late Cretaceous and contains a soft chalk and a hard flint. While the chalk is easily quarried, it is not a suitable strength for construction and features many man-made burial caves.

History

The Mount of Olives, c. 1899
The Jewish Cemetery on the Mount of Olives, 155 years apart. The map, from 1858, considered the most accurate in existence at the time, marks the Jewish graves clearly on the bottom left. The aerial photo, from 2013, is taken from the south.

From

period of the Biblical kings.[2]

The religious ceremony marking the start of a new month was held on the Mount of Olives during the Second Temple period.[6] During the time of the Roman procurator Antonius Felix (52–60 CE), a Jewish prophetic figure known as "the Egyptian" gathered his followers atop the Mount of Olives in preparation for an invasion of the city or in the belief that he would cause the walls of Jerusalem to fall, allowing them to enter (depending on the version). This group was crushed by the Romans. While "the Egyptian" managed to flee, many of his followers were killed or taken captive, and the remainder escaped.[7][8]

Siege of Jerusalem in the year 70 AD. After the destruction of the Second Temple, Jews celebrated the festival of Sukkot on the Mount of Olives. They made pilgrimages to the Mount of Olives because it was 80 meters higher than the Temple Mount and offered a panoramic view of the Temple site. It became a traditional place for lamenting the Temple's destruction, especially on Tisha B'Av.[6] In 1481, an Italian Jewish pilgrim, Meshullam of Volterra, wrote: "And all the community of Jews, every year, goes up to Mount Zion on the day of Tisha B'Av to fast and mourn, and from there they move down along Yoshafat Valley and up to Mount of Olives. From there they see the whole Temple (the Temple Mount) and there they weep and lament the destruction of this House."[9]

In 1189, in the wake of the 1187 Battle of Hattin and reconquest of the land by Saladin, the sultan gave the Mount to two of his commanders.

In the mid-1850s, the villagers of Silwan were paid £100 annually by the Jews in an effort to prevent the desecration of graves on the mount.[10]

Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin asked to be buried on the Mount of Olives near the graves of Etzel members Meir Feinstein and Moshe Barazani, rather than Mount Herzl national cemetery.[11]

Status since 1948

Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives

The armistice agreement signed by Israel and Jordan following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War called for the establishment of a Special Committee to negotiate developments including "free access to the holy sites and cultural institutions and use of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives". However, during the 19 years the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank lasted, the committee was not formed. Non-Israeli Christian pilgrims were allowed to visit the mount, but Jews of all countries and most non-Jewish Israeli citizens were barred from entering Jordan and therefore were unable to travel to the area.[12][13][14]

By the end of 1949, and throughout the Jordanian rule of the site, some Arab residents uprooted tombstones and plowed the land in the cemeteries, and an estimated 38,000 tombstones were damaged in total. During this period, a road was paved through the cemetery, in the process destroying graves including those of famous persons.

Jordanian Army barracks.[17][18][19][20] The United Nations did not condemn the Jordanian government for these actions.[21]

State of Israel

Following the 1967 Six-Day War restoration work was done and the cemetery was reopened for burials. Israel's 1980 unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem was condemned as a violation of international law and ruled null and void by the UN Security Council in UNSC Resolution 478.

Tombs in the

Gerrer Rebbe and Menachem Begin.[22][23][24][25]

On 6 November 2010, an international watch-committee was set up by Diaspora Jews with the aim of reversing the desecration of the Jewish cemetery. According to one of the founders, the initiative was triggered by witnessing tombstones that were wrecked with "the kind of maliciousness that defies the imagination."[25]

Religious significance

Hebrew Bible references

David and Absalom

The Mount of Olives is first mentioned in connection with David's flight from Absalom (

City of David, near the village of Silwan.[1]

Site of "the glory of the Lord"

The sacred character of the mount is alluded to in the Book of Ezekiel (11:23): "And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountain which is on the east side of the city."[1]

"Mount of Corruption"

The biblical designation Mount of Corruption, or in Hebrew Har HaMashchit (

First Temple period, until king of Judah, Josiah, finally destroyed "the high places that were before Jerusalem, to the right of Har HaMashchit..."(II Kings
23:13)

Apocalypse, resurrection, and burials

An apocalyptic prophecy in the

King's Gardens was blocked up by landslide rubble during Uzziah's earthquake.[26] Israeli geologists Wachs and Levitte identified the remnant of a large landslide on the Mount of Olives directly adjacent to this area.[27] Based on geographic and linguistic evidence, Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau, a 19th-century linguist and archeologist in Palestine, theorized that the valley directly adjacent to this landslide is Azal.[28]
This evidence accords with the LXX reading of Zechariah 14:5, which states that the valley will be blocked up as far as Azal. The valley he identified (which is now known as Wady Yasul in Arabic, and Nahal Etzel in Hebrew) lies south of both Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives.

Many Jews have wanted to be buried on the Mount of Olives since antiquity, based on the Jewish tradition (from the Biblical verse Zechariah 14:4) that when the Messiah comes, the resurrection of the dead will begin there.

Tomb of the Prophets Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi
.

New Testament references

Flevit super illam (He wept over it); by Enrique Simonet
, 1892

The Mount of Olives is frequently mentioned in the

Flevit super illam in Latin
).

Jesus is said to have spent time on the mount, teaching and prophesying to his disciples (Matthew 24–25), including the

Olivet discourse, returning after each day to rest (Luke 21:37, and John 8:1 in the additional section of John's Gospel known as the Pericope Adulterae), and also coming there on the night of his betrayal.[31] At the foot of the Mount of Olives lies the Garden of Gethsemane. The New Testament tells how Jesus and his disciples sang together – "When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives" Gospel of Matthew 26:30. Jesus ascended to heaven
from the Mount of Olives according to Acts 1:9–12.

Gnostic references

Again, the story of Jesus with his disciples on the Mount of Olives can be found in the Gnostic text Pistis Sophia, dated around the 3rd to 4th century CE.[32]

Landmarks

Landmarks at the top of the Mount of Olives include the

al-Eizariya, identified with the ancient village of Bethany mentioned in the New Testament; a short distance from the village centre, towards the top of the mount, is the traditional site of Bethphage, marked by a Franciscan church.[33]

The construction of the

Brigham Young University Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies, better known locally as the Mormon University, owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) near the Tzurim Valley which separates the Mount of Olives from Mount Scopus, initially sparked controversy because of concerns that the Mormons would engage in missionary activities. After the Mormons pledged not to proselytize in Israel, work on the building was allowed to proceed.[35]

Gallery

See also

alt text
Mount of Olives in July 2009

References

  1. ^ a b c Har-El, Menashe (1977). This is Jerusalem. Jerusalem: Canaan Publishing House. p. 117.
  2. ^
    S2CID 165984075
    .
  3. ^ "International committee vows to restore Mount of Olives". Ynetnews. 8 November 2010.
  4. ^ "The Ancient Olive Trees on the Mount of Olives". Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development. Government of Israel. Archived from the original on 2019-04-28. Retrieved 2019-04-28.
  5. ^ Hull, Edward (1885). Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine. Richard Bentley and Son, London. p. 152.
  6. ^ a b Har-el, Menashe (1977). This is Jerusalem. Jerusalem: Canaan. pp. 120–23.
  7. ^ Josephus, the Jewish War, 2.261-63; Antiquities of the Jews, 20.169-72
  8. ISBN 978-0-19-507615-8
    .
  9. ^ Nom de Deu, J. (1987). Relatos de Viajes y Epistolas de Peregrinos Jud.os a Jerusalén. Madrid. p. 82.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  10. ISBN 978-965-229-254-4
    .
  11. ^ Sheleg, Yair (2007-04-07). "The good jailer". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 2013-11-15. Retrieved 2010-07-16.
  12. ^ To Rule Jerusalem By Roger Friedland, Richard Hecht, 2000, p. 39, "Tourists entering East Jerusalem had to present baptismal certificates or other proof they were not Jewish."
  13. ^ Thomas A Idinopulos, Jerusalem, 1994, p. 300, "So severe were the Jordanian restrictions against Jews gaining access to the old city that visitors wishing to cross over from west Jerusalem...had to produce a baptismal certificate."
  14. ^ Armstrong, Karen, Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths, 1997, "Only clergy, diplomats, UN personnel, and a few privileged tourists were permitted to go from one side to the other. The Jordanians required most tourists to produce baptismal certificates—to prove they were not Jewish ... ."
  15. ISBN 9781317175025
    .
  16. ^ Bronner, Ethan; Kershner, Isabel (2009-05-10). "Parks Fortify Israel's Claim to Jerusalem". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-03-27.
  17. ISBN 1-56836-099-1
    . After 1967, it was discovered that tombstones had been removed from the ancient cemetery to pave the latrines of a nearby Jordanian army barrack.
  18. ISBN 978-0-520-91868-9
    .
  19. ISBN 965-229-254-0
    . "The majority (50,000 of the 70,000) was desecrated by the Arabs during the nineteen years of Jordanian rule in eastern Jerusalem."
  20. ISBN 0-253-20873-4
    .
  21. ISBN 978-0-8453-4809-3
    .
  22. ^ Mount of Olives security beefed up to stop vandalism, Jerusalem Post 17-12-2009
  23. ^ Has Israel abandoned the Mount of Olives?, Jerusalem Post 15-05-2010
  24. ^ Vandalism returns to Mount of Olives cemetery, Ynet News 12-05-2010
  25. ^ a b Shameful dereliction at the Mt. of Olives Cemetery, Jerusalem Post 06-11-2010
  26. Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, book 9, chapter 10, paragraph 4, verse 225, William Whiston
  27. ^ Daniel Wachs and Dov Levitte, Earthquake Risk and Slope Stability in Jerusalem, Environmental Geology and Water Sciences, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 183–86, 1984
  28. ^ Charles Clermont-Ganneau, Archaeological Researches in Palestine, Vol. 1. p. 420, 1899; Charles Clermont-Ganneau, Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement, April 1874, p. 102
  29. ^ Mount of Olives description, from www.goisrael.com Archived 2012-03-20 at the Wayback Machine, retrieved January 4, 2012.
  30. ^ Matthew 21:1; 26:30, etc.
  31. ^ Matthew 26:39
  32. ^ G. R. S. Mead (1963). "2". Pistis Sophia. Jazzybee Verlag.
  33. ^ a b Alternative Tourism Group (ATG)- Study Center. The Mount of Olives [1]
  34. ^ "Emek Tzurim". The City of David. 2009. Archived from the original on 2010-02-12. Retrieved 2010-07-16.
  35. ^ "Jerusalem – Beyond the Old City Walls". Jewishvirtuallibrary.org. July 22, 1946. Retrieved 2013-03-26.

External links

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